The True Cause
God created the earth and the living soil upon it. God commanded mankind to "dress and keep it," not pollute and destroy it (Genesis. 2:15). But from the beginning, man rebelled against his Creator. He chose to live by the "get" way of life, instead of God's "give" or "love" way.
The destruction and killing of the world's soils is the result of human individuals and nations living the wrong way of life. Wrong agriculture takes — gets — more from the soil than is being returned — given back — to it. Man is not giving back essential elements and nutrients and giving it the tender care, protection and rest it needs to keep it fertile and workable.
Selfishness and short-sightedness, along with population and economic pressures, are causing farmers throughout the world to throw many sound agricultural and conservation practices to the wind. Instead, man substitutes soil practices that damage or ruin soils for short-term profits.
Today, rapidly fading from mind or altogether forgotten are concerns for maintenance of organic matter such as manures and decayed plant life in the soil. Organic matter, or humus, helps maintain proper tilth, or soil structure, so plants and soil organisms breathe properly and feed properly.
Farm animals don't even exist on many farms anymore to assist in this job. Often manure is piled up on huge cattle feedlots where it runs off and pollutes land and water supplies. Sometimes it is reconverted, with the addition of molasses, as cattle feed! In developing nations, much animal waste is burned for fuel instead of fertilizing soils.
On many lands crop residues are removed or burned off, instead of being plowed back in or composted for return to the soil. Many farmers are trying to bypass the living organisms that provide nutrients from humus and minerals. Instead, they believe they can force-feed directly by chemical fertilizers. These fertilizers supply a few elements agricultural scientists think are critical and necessary. Such practices lead many farmers to disregard the complex chemistry and life of fertile soil.
When used exclusively or excessively, some powerful concentrated chemical fertilizers poison certain soil organisms. They cause others to proliferate and burn up existing humus at accelerated rates. The destruction of humus damages the structure of the soil: aeration, water and nutrient-holding capacity of soils drop. Under such assaults, natural granulation, the binding together of soil particles, breaks down. Then wind and water erosion strips away soil ever more rapidly. Heavier doses of fertilizers and pesticides must then be added to sustain crops.
A vicious cycle of destruction is now in motion on many soils. Bad farming increases soil hardpan and encrustation. Soils choke up, they harden so roots and water can't go down deep. Farmers are forced to use heavier machinery to pull plows and break up subsoils. But the heavier equipment often causes even greater land compaction.
Crop rotation, green manuring (plowing under various crops — especially grasses and legumes — to replenish soil nutrients and improve soil structure) and fallow cycles are being reduced or eliminated.
Monoculture — growing one cash crop instead of rotating different cash crops — is becoming the rule. Farmers must use more and more poisonous herbicides, fungicides and pesticides to control the weeds, pests and crop diseases produced by such farming. These poisons then pollute the soil and run off with eroded soil to lakes, rivers and water reservoirs. Who is not affected by such practices?
Other sound soil conservation practices are being abandoned. In the 1930s, protective shelterbelts of trees were planted on many United States soils to act as windbreaks. They are now rapidly being torn down.
Many farms are run by tenant farmers or distant owners. They have no stake in soil but in getting what they can from farmland, then moving on or selling croplands for a profit, often for nonfarm use.
A southwestern Minnesota farmer said soil erosion in his area is so bad it is now called "the black desert." "Thousands of shelterbelts are being ripped out," he said.”Farmers are so greedy for land that half an acre of protective trees are not worth anything anymore. Half an acre of dirt is. It's sad."
Under the lure of high food prices marginal land is being plowed up and fertilizers poured on to make it produce. New hillside land often is not being properly terraced as it should be. The yields from such land is unstable and plummets with any inclement weather.
Mankind seems locked into this tragic pattern of "get" agriculture. Food authorities say if chemical fertilizers and pesticides were stopped, world food production would plummet one third. What a dilemma mankind is in! We all are living on whatever good qualities world soils still have. These are rapidly being mined out or destroyed. What will happen when fertile soil resources are used up or eroded away?
What if massive fertilizer shortages occur for some reason? Crop production will tumble! No modern technology will be able to save mankind quickly after he has destroyed his fertile soils!
God Must Intervene
The Creator set laws in motion to produce and maintain healthy soils. To produce healthy livestock and human beings. Many fail to see the relationship between sick soils and sick animals and human beings. God warns in the pages of your Bible what happens to individuals and nations that break his way of life and his agricultural laws.
"Cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine [cattle], and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out." Why? ". . . because . . . thou hast forsaken me [the Creator]" (Deuteronomy 28:16-20).
God says, ". . . thou hast polluted the land. . . . Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain" (Jeremiah 3:2-3). Do farmers and city dwellers see our weather problems at all related to what we are doing to our soils and croplands? Hardly!
God commanded the ancient nation of Israel to rest their land every seventh year to allow it to regenerate and restore fertility (Leviticus 25:2-7). But modern man in his greed forgets future generations while seeking his own immediate wealth. He commonly does not let land rest properly and destroys the soil.
The Creator warns nations that abuse their precious soil through overworking, ". . . your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate. . . As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your Sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it" (Leviticus 26:33-35).
Only the restoration of God's government on earth through the return of Jesus Christ will save humanity from the disastrous dilemma that is occurring to the croplands of the world. Jesus Christ must return with full divine authority to force nations and individuals to preserve and increase the most precious physical resource humans have — fertile soil.
Under God's government, everyone will be given an inheritance of good land (Zechariah 3:10). It will remain a family inheritance and families will have a large stake in maintaining and improving its fertility. They will not wander off in mass to urban centers for employment.
Food production on tenderly cared-for land will skyrocket. So fertile will be the soil that this wonderful prophecy will find fulfillment: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper . . .” (Amos 9:13). And ". . . the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose" (Isaiah 35:1).
The alarming destruction of croplands and the increasing woe of starvation will be no more! God speed that day!